or manager's money--and why? To
win their influence in favor of good art, think you? No; to feed
vanity and greed. When a critic is found of sufficient self-respect
and character to resist all appeals and to be proof against all
temptations, who is quicker than the musician to cite against his
opinion the applause of the public over whose gullibility and
ignorance, perchance, he made merry with the critic while trying to
purchase his independence and honor?

[Sidenote: _The public an elemental force._]

[Sidenote: _Critic and public._]

[Sidenote: _Schumann and popular approval._]

It is only when musicians divide the question touching the rights and
merits of public and critic that they seem able to put a correct
estimate upon the value of popular approval. At the last the best of
them are willing, with Ferdinand Hiller, to look upon the public as an
elemental power like the weather, which must be taken as it chances to
come. With modern society resting upon the newspaper they might be
willing to view the critic in the same light; but this they will not
do so long as they adhere to the notion that criticism belongs of
right to the professional musician, and will eventually be handed over
to him. As for the critic, he may recognize the naturalness and
reasonableness of a final resort for judgment to the factor for whose
sake art is (_i.e._, the public), but he is not bound to admit its
unfailing righteousness. Upon him, so he be worthy of his office,
weighs the duty of first determining whether the appeal is taken from
a lofty purpose or a low one, and whether or not the favored tribunal
is worthy to try the case. Those who show a willingness to accept low
ideals cannot exact high ones. The influence of their applause is a
thousand-fold more injurious to art than the strictures of the most
acrid critic. A musician of Schumann's mental and moral stature could
recognize this and make it the basis of some of his most forcible
aphorisms:

"'It pleased,' or 'It did not please,' say the people; as if
there were no higher purpose than to please the people."

"The most difficult thing in the world to endure is the
applause of fools!"

[Sidenote: _Depreciation of the critic._]

[Sidenote: _Value of public opinion._]

The belief professed by many musicians--professed, not really
held--that the public can do no wrong, unquestionably grows out of a
depreciation of the critic rather than an appreciat